Sri Vidya College of Engineering & Technology Question bank (unit 1)

UNIT 1- 2 MARKS

1. What are the 5 major senses?

• Sight
• Hearing
• Touch
• Taste
• Smell
2. What are the effectors?
• Limbs
• Fingers
• Eyes
• Head
• Vocal system.
3. What are the two stages of vision
• the physical reception of the stimulus from outside world, and
• The processing and interpretation of that stimulus.

4. What is rods and cones? Or what is two types of photoreceptor?

Rods are highly sensitive to light and therefore allow us to see under a low level of
Illumination. The rods have been active and are saturated by the sudden light. The cones do
not operate either as they are suppressed by the rods. We are therefore temporarily unable to
see at all. Rods therefore dominate peripheral vision.
Cones
Cones are the second type of receptor in the eye. They are less sensitive to light than the rods
and can therefore tolerate more light. There are three types of cone, each sensitive to a
different wavelength of light. This allows color vision. The eye has approximately 6 million
cones, mainly concentrated on the fovea.

5. How does the eye perceive size, depth and relative distances? How the visual angle is
calculated.
To understand this we must consider how the image appears on the retina. The
reflected light from the object forms an upside-down image on the retina. The size of that
image is specified as a visual angle.
If we were to draw a line from the top of the object to a central point on the front
of the eye and a second line from the bottom of the object to the same point, the visual
angle of the object is the angle between these two lines. Visual angle is affected by both
the size of the object and its distance from the eye. Therefore if two objects are at the
same distance, the larger one will have the larger visual angle. Similarly, if two objects of
the same size are placed at different distances from the eye, the furthest one will have the
smaller visual angle. The visual angle indicates how much of the field of view is taken by
the object. The visual angle measurement is given in either degrees or minutes of arc,
where 1 degree is equivalent to 60 minutes of arc, and 1 minute of arc to 60 seconds of
arc.

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Sri Vidya College of Engineering & Technology Question bank (unit 1)

6. What is visual acuity?

Visual acuity is the ability of a person to perceive fine detail. A number of measurements
have been established to test visual acuity, most of which are included in standard eye
tests.
For example, a person with normal vision can detect a single line if it has a visual angle
of 0.5 seconds of arc. Spaces between lines can be detected at 30 seconds to 1 minute of
visual arc. These represent the limits of human visual acuity.

7. What is HCI?
Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) is a field of study focusing on the design of
computer technology and, in particular, the interaction between humans (the users) and
computers. It encompasses multiple disciplines, such as computer science, cognitive
science, and human-factors engineering. While initially concerned with computers, HCI
has since expanded to cover almost all forms of information technology design.

8. What are the input and output channels of human?

Input in human is mainly though the senses and output through the motor control of the
effectors.
i.) There are five major senses:
Sight, Hearing, Touch, Taste, Smell.
ii.) There are a number of effectors:
Limbs, Fingers, Eyes, Head, Vocal system.

9. What is reading?
There are several stages in the reading process. First, the visual pattern of the word on the page is
perceived. It is then decoded with reference to an internal representation of language. The final
stages of language processing include syntactic and semantic analysis and operate on phrases or
sentences.

10. What is hearing?

It provides information about environment: distances, directions, objects etc.
Physical apparatus:
a. outer ear – protects inner and amplifies sound

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Sri Vidya College of Engineering & Technology Question bank (unit 1)

b. middle ear – transmits sound waves as vibrations to inner ear

c. inner ear – chemical transmitters are released and cause impulses in
auditory nerve Sound
d. pitch – sound frequency
e. loudness – amplitude
timbre – type or quality

11. What is touch?

Touch Provides important feedback about environment. May be key sense for someone
who is visually impaired. Stimulus received via receptors in the skin:
a. thermoreceptors – heat and cold
b. nociceptors – pain
c. mechanoreceptors – pressure (some instant, some continuous)
Some areas more sensitive than others e.g. fingers.
Kinethesis - awareness of body position affects comfort and performance.

12. What is sensory memory?

Buffers for stimuli received through senses
a. iconic memory: visual stimuli
b. echoic memory: aural stimuli
c. haptic memory: tactile stimuli
Examples
“sparkler” trail , stereo sound

13. What is long term memory? And mention its types

Repository for all our knowledge
a. slow access ~ 1/10 second
b. slow decay, if any
c. huge or unlimited capacity
Two types
d. episodic – serial memory of events
e. semantic – structured memory of facts,concepts, skills
Semantic LTM derived from episodic LTM

14. What is semantic memory?

Semantic memory structure
a. provides access to information
b. represents relationships between bits of information
c. supports inference
Model: semantic network
d. inheritance – child nodes inherit properties of parent nodes

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Sri Vidya College of Engineering & Technology Question bank (unit 1)

e. relationships between bits of information explicit supports inference through

inheritance

15. Give example for Long term memory

16. What is forgetting?

There are two main theories of forgetting: decay and interference.

i.) Decay- information is lost gradually but very slowly
ii.) Interference- information is lost from memory through interference.
a. retroactive interference: new information replaces old:
b. proactive inhibition :old may interfere with new:

17. What is retrieval?

Recall -information reproduced from memory can be assisted by cues, e.g. categories,
imagery
Recognition -information gives knowledge that it has been seen before fewer complexes
than recall - information is cue

18. What is deductive reasoning

It is deriving logically necessary conclusion from given premises.
e.g. If it is Friday then she will go to work
It is Friday
Therefore she will go to work.
Logical conclusion not necessarily true:
e.g. If it is raining then the ground is dry
It is raining

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Sri Vidya College of Engineering & Technology Question bank (unit 1)

Therefore the ground is dry

19. What is inductive reasoning

Induction:
a. generalize from cases seen to cases unseen
b. e.g. all elephants we have seen have trunks
therefore all elephants have trunks.
Unreliable: can only prove false not true

20. What is abductive reasoning

Reasoning from event to cause
a. e.g. Sam drives fast when drunk.
b. If I see Sam driving fast, assume drunk.
Unreliable: can lead to false explanations

21. What is gestalt theory?

a. problem solving both productive and reproductive
b. productive draws on insight and restructuring of problem
c. attractive but not enough evidence to explain `insight' etc. move away from
behaviourism and led towards information processing theories

22. What is problem space theory?

a. problem space comprises problem states
b. problem solving involves generating states using legal operators
c. heuristics may be employed to select operators
e.g. means-ends analysis
d. operates within human information processing system
e.g. STM limits etc.
e. largely applied to problem solving in well-defined areas
e.g. puzzles rather than knowledge intensive areas

23. Mention the types of error?

1. slips
a. right intention, but failed to do it right
b. causes: poor physical skill,inattention etc.
c. change to aspect of skilled behaviour can cause slip
2. mistakes
d. wrong intention
e. cause: incorrect understanding

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Sri Vidya College of Engineering & Technology Question bank (unit 1)

Humans create mental models to explain behaviour. if wrong (different from actual
system) errors can occur

24. What are text entry devices available in computer?

i. keyboards (QWERTY et al.)
ii. chord keyboards, phone pads
iii. handwriting, speech

25. What is jaggies and anti-aliasing?

Jaggies - diagonal lines that have discontinuities in due to horizontal raster scan process.
Anti-aliasing - softens edges by using shades of line colour also used for text

26. Mention the health hazards of CRT

• X-rays: largely absorbed by screen (but not at rear!)
• UV- and IR-radiation from phosphors: insignificant levels
• Radio frequency emissions, plus ultrasound (~16kHz)
• Electrostatic field - leaks out through tube to user. Intensity dependant on distance
and humidity. Can cause rashes. Electromagnetic fields (50Hz-0.5MHz). Create
induction currents in conductive materials, including the human body. Two types of
effects attributed to this: visual system - high incidence of cataracts in VDU
operators, and concern over reproductive disorders (miscarriages and birth defects).

27. Mention 7 stages of Donald Norman’s model in interaction?

a. user establishes the goal
b. formulates intention
c. specifies actions at interface
d. executes action
e. perceives system state
f. interprets system state
g. evaluates system state with respect to goal

28. What is execution and evaluation loop

goal

execution evaluation
system

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Sri Vidya College of Engineering & Technology Question bank (unit 1)

• user establishes the goal

• formulates intention
• specifies actions at interface
• executes action
• perceives system state
• interprets system state
• evaluates system state with respect to goal

29. What is ergonomics

It is a Study of the physical characteristics of interaction. Also known as human
factors – but this can also be used to mean much of HCI!.Ergonomics good at defining
standards and guidelines for constraining the way we design certain aspects of systems
Examples:
• arrangement of controls and displays
e.g. controls grouped according to function or frequency of use, or sequentially
• surrounding environment
e.g. seating arrangements adaptable to cope with all sizes of user

30. List out common interaction styles

• command line interface
• menus
• natural language
• question/answer and query dialogue
• form-fills and spreadsheets
• WIMP
• point and click
• three–dimensional interfaces

31. What is WIMP?

Windows -Areas of the screen that behave as if they were independent
Icons - small picture or image
Menus - Choice of operations or services offered on the screen
Pointers-WIMP style relies on pointing and selecting things

32. What are paradigms and give examples

- Predominant theoretical frameworks or scientific world views
a. e.g., Aristotelian, Newtonian, Einsteinian (relativistic) paradigms in physics
- Understanding HCI history is largely about understanding a series of paradigm
shifts
b. Not all listed here are necessarily “paradigm” shifts, but are at least candidates

CS6008- Human Computer Interaction prepared by P.Ramya, AP/CSE

Sri Vidya College of Engineering & Technology Question bank (unit 1)

History will judge which are true shifts

Examples: Batch processing , Timesharing, Networking, Graphical display,
Microprocessor, WWW, Ubiquitous Computing

33. What is metaphor?

It is relating computing to other real-world activity is effective teaching technique
a. LOGO's turtle dragging its tail
b. file management on an office desktop
c. word processing as typing
d. financial analysis on spreadsheets
e. virtual reality – user inside the metaphor Problems
f. some tasks do not fit into a given metaphor cultural bias

34. What is ubiquitous computing?

“The most profound technologies are those that disappear.”
How to make it disappear?
– Shrink and embed/distribute it in the physical world
Design interactions that don’t demand our intention

35. What is ACT* Model?

ACT* identifies three basic levels of skill:
1. The learner uses general-purpose rules which interpret facts about a problem.
This is slow and demanding on memory access.
2. The learner develops rules specific to the task.
3. The rules are tuned to speed up performance.

36. What is script?

A script represents this default or stereotypical information, allowing us to
interpret partial descriptions or cues fully. A script comprises a number of elements,
which, like slots, can be filled with appropriate information:
Entry conditions - Conditions that must be satisfied for the script to be activated.
Result - Conditions that will be true after the script is terminated.
Props - Objects involved in the events described in the script.
Roles - Actions performed by particular participants.
Scenes - The sequences of events that occur.
Tracks - A variation on the general pattern representing an alternative scenario.

CS6008- Human Computer Interaction prepared by P.Ramya, AP/CSE

Sri Vidya College of Engineering & Technology Question bank (unit 1)

16 MARKS
1. Explain in detail about human input and output channels
visual, auditory, haptic, movement

2. Explain in detail about human memory systems?

sensory memory – iconic, echoic, haptic memory
Long term memory
Short term memory – episodic, semantic

3. Explain in detail about text entry , positioning and pointing devices

Text entry devices - keyboards (QWERTY et al.) , chord keyboards, phone pads ,
handwriting, speech
positioning, pointing and drawing- mouse, touchpad, trackballs, joysticks etc.
touch screens, tablets, eyegaze, cursors

4. Explain in detail about interaction styles

• command line interface
• menus
• natural language
• question/answer and query dialogue
• form-fills and spreadsheets
• WIMP
• point and click, three–dimensional interfaces

5. Explain in detail about paradigms and ergonomics

1. Paradigm:
- Predominant theoretical frameworks or scientific world views
a. e.g., Aristotelian, Newtonian, Einsteinian (relativistic) paradigms in physics
- Understanding HCI history is largely about understanding a series of paradigm
shifts
b. Not all listed here are necessarily “paradigm” shifts, but are at least candidates
History will judge which are true shifts
Examples: Batch processing , Timesharing, Networking, Graphical display,
Microprocessor, WWW, Ubiquitous Computing
2. Metaphore
3. Direct manipulation
Ergonomics - It is a Study of the physical characteristics of interaction.Also known as
human factors – but this can also be used to mean much of HCI!

CS6008- Human Computer Interaction prepared by P.Ramya, AP/CSE

Sri Vidya College of Engineering & Technology Question bank (unit 1)

Ergonomics good at defining standards and guidelines for constraining the way we design
certain aspects of systems
Examples:
• arrangement of controls and displays
e.g. controls grouped according to function or frequency of use, or sequentially
• surrounding environment
e.g. seating arrangements adaptable to cope with all sizes of user

ASSIGNMENT
1. Identify the goals and operators involved in the problem ‘delete the second
paragraph of the document’ on a word processor. Now use a word processor to
delete a paragraph and note your actions, goals and subgoals. How well did they
match your earlier description? ( pag no- 45)
2. Create a semantic network for human memory
3. What input and output devices would you use for the following systems? For each,
compare and contrast alternatives, and if appropriate indicate why the conventional
keyboard, mouse and CRT screen may be less suitable.
(a) portable word processor
(b) tourist information system
(c) tractor-mounted crop-spraying controller
(d)air traffic control system
(e) worldwide personal communications system
(f ) digital cartographic system.

CS6008- Human Computer Interaction prepared by P.Ramya, AP/CSE